Large increase in Mestizos who drop out of school: Liberals say more $$ needed

Oct 9 2002

The number of Hispanics who dropped out or never attended high school surged by over 50 percent in the 1990s, especially in the South and West where many schools struggled to accommodate the fast-growing Spanish-speaking population.
The changing demographics present a tough task to school administrators who must find money in their tight budgets to hire bilingual staffers and develop new programs to teach newly arrived students who may not have a good grasp of English.

In 2000, approximately 1.56 million U.S. residents ages 16 to 19 were not high school graduates and not enrolled in school. Of the total, nearly 34 percent, or more than 528,000, were Hispanic. That's up from 22 percent, or nearly 346,000, of the 1.59 million total in 1990. The dramatic change in the percentage is due partly to the overall growth in the Hispanic population during the 1990s to 35.3 million, rivaling blacks as the nation's largest minority group. Hispanics represented nearly 16 percent of all 16- to 19-year-olds in 2000, regardless of educational background, up from 11 percent in 1990. While the number of Hispanic dropouts and those who never attended high school grew by nearly 53 percent, the overall population of Hispanic youths of that age grew by about 45 percent.

Among all Hispanics ages 16 to 19, about 21 percent, did not graduate from high school or were not enrolled in school, down slightly from nearly 21.6 percent in 1990. Among blacks of that age, the dropout rate was 12 percent, down from 14 percent. For whites, it was just below 7 percent, down from 9 percent. Raul Gonzalez, education policy analyst with the Hispanic advocacy group, the National Council of La Raza, pointed to the importance of creating new methods to address the shifting demographics,
"It's not going to be cheap to educate these kids," he said.

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Posts: 11,640

It would be interesting to see the breakdown in Hispanic statistics baced on race. Most of those coming from the south are Mestesos. I would imagine the white hispanic drop out rate is close to other whites.

While that may be true, I do not there to be a tendancy here to split hairs as to who is Hispanic. Board administration is based in South Florida and for this reason I understand that it is a touchy subject.
Yet, the fact remains that most Hispanics whether Caucasian, Latin, Near Eastern or 'whatever' tend to work together on a linguistic and cultural basis. This leads to a vast exodus northward which is rarely discussed on this forum and which is leading to a defacto republic along our Southern borders.
Of course, there are always exceptions to that rule...as there are many posters here that are Spanish heritage.